Retirees Filling the Front Line in Market Fears

Older Americans with investments are among the hardest hit by the turmoil in the financial markets and have the least opportunity to recover.

As companies have switched from fixed pensions to 401(k) accounts, retirees risk losing big chunks of their wealth and income in a single day’s trading, as many have in the last month.

“There’s a terrified older population out there,” said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “If you’re 45 and the market goes down, it bothers you, but it comes back. But if you’re retired or about to retire, you might have to sell your assets before they have a chance to recover. And people don’t have the luxury of being in bonds because they don’t yield enough for how long we live.”

Today’s retirees have less money in savings, longer life expectancies and greater exposure to market risk than any retirees since World War II. Even before the last week of turmoil, 39 percent of retirees said they expected to outlive their savings, up from 29 percent in 2007, according to a survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, an industry-sponsored group in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/23retirees.html?th&emc=th

...last weekend. The terrified older population was kept in deep background at that event by the Palin handlers.

Social Security talk.
McSame should be hammered for promoting it.

Noted lately for having the highest per capita STD rate in Florida.

Republicans, no sex education, and Viagra make a terrible mix.

The media run this topic every time the market goes down. They miss the point, though: the headline ought to be ELDERLY--LIMIT WHAT YOU HAVE IN STOCKS! As people get closer to retirement they ought to pull funds out of stocks and into conservative investments. I read it in Investing for Dummies (and have re-read it numerous times), so even (investor) dummies like me know it.